Shinbo – For Kyoko, if I look only at the screenplay, she would look like a character who could appear in a work by director Dezaki (Osamu)

Urobuchi – And she also chewed apples (lol). Kyoko is a character who had decided and prepared to live her life as a mahou shoujo. I made her as a character to be the direct opposite to Sayaka. [symbv: It is well known that characters who appeared in the works by Osamu Dezaki liked to chew apples. Even the studio he founded, Studio Annapple, got its name from an apple.]

Shinbo – In episodes like ep.9 and ep.10 the acting skills of all the seiyuu were very good. Especially the acting in ep.10 by Chiwa Saito, who voiced Homura, was beyond expectation. I think it was tough to do only acting with things like crying and screaming, but she was really that good. Also, Aoi Yuuki-san, who voiced Madoka, spoke the dialogue “Keep it a secret from everyone in the class!” so well, it got me to want to make an anime in which Madoka fights as an ordinary mahou shoujo.

Urobuchi – Was it the idea of director Shinbo to have the opening theme “Connect” run as the ending theme?

Shinbo – That's right. Since when I first saw the lyrics, I thought that this should be run at the end of episode 10.

Urobuchi – And ep.10 is also an episode that links back to ep.1 too. As for the screenplay of ep.10, even during the time when I was writing it I thought that it would be quite tough trying to include everything in around 24 minutes of video. I thought since I wrote such a demanding screenplay this time the anime staff would surely have got angry. However since that screenplay got OK'd pretty easily, I thought director Shinbo and Shaft were just great.

Shinbo – It was a screenplay that has a density worth of one hour length. The volume [of the contents] rivaled that of a movie. But then the screenplay was interesting and since Madoka was supposed to be an original work in which the screenplay of all episodes were handled by Urobuchi-san, I would like to make the most of the style of Urobuchi-san as much as possible. Also the staff in the animation team got worked up since ep.7 and ep.8 so I decided to go for it all for ep.10.

Urobuchi – Since Homura looped through the same period of time many times, and of course I also considered the actual situation of producing an anime, I had expected video footage to be reused. However Gekidan Inu-Curry-san, responsible for the design of the alternate reality space, designed a lot of new witches. As a result whenever there was a new loop new fight scene was made, and I thought it was really great stuff.

Kaori Mizuhashi (Mami Tomoe) interview

Translation courtesy of symbv of evageeks forum

What was your feeling when you were selected to voice Mami?
During the auditon I read the plot of all the episodes and I really wanted to appear in it, so I was really happy. Since she is the number one senpai among the mahou shoujo, I think I had to be more like a senpai and so I put my spirit into voicing her.

How was it like when you started to voice-act as Mami?
Mami-san was not just a kind onee-san. At first sight she looked perfect but from time to time she let out vulnerability, and then there was the shadow casting over her because of her being continuously tormented by loneliness, and then somewhere in her gave you an ephemeral feeling. I put my effort into [making such character alive].

Your thoughts of the work Madoka Magika
All the elements that composed Madoka were created with subtlety and care. I think it is a work that teaches me the joy of thinking over the sentiments of the characters who made their appearances, the meanings incorporated in the BGM and songs, the messages hidden in the story development or the background or little objects. Even for a single individual, the world view of Madoka could be supplemented by various media and one could expect that the elements worth thinking over will only increase.

How was it like during the After-recording sessions?
The attentive air during the after-recording made a deep impression to me. And then the sessions had a lot of occasions where topics about the anime were vigorously discussed. I feel that it is rare to see so many talks during recording breaks being focused only on a work or a cast of characters on that level.